R.W. Firestone

Robert W. Firestone was born in 1930 in Brooklyn, New York. In 1946, at the age of 16, he enrolled at the University of Syracuse and in 1951 graduated from the University of Berkley. After which he began to paint and immediately revealed, along with his interest in psychology, a strong and persistent passion for art. During this period, he executed a series of landscapes seen in the course of his travels, as well as, while treating patients at the limits of emotional suffering, he completed numerous portraits of friends, patients and colleagues in a style which can be defined as "humanitarian expressionism".

Working on his Ph.D, which he obtained in 1957, his attention was attracted by the theories of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank on one hand, while on the other, the life and work of the great artists Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin. He has over the years published numerous articles and books on his
psychoanalytical theories, forming the "conviction of the importance of the individual and his personal liberty, associated with a deep comprehension of the human condition". Finally, he realized another of his great passions, the sea, in which he found he could most naturally live in the ideal condition of freedom. In the early '70's, Firestone and a group of his friends bought the "Vltava", an 80-foot schooner, and thus began many long voyages which continue even today. With his family and friends
he has searched for a life full of coherence with the values of integrity, honesty and generosity. His activity as a theorist in psychotherapy and his intense expressive research has lead him in recent years to dominate masterfully the language of digital artistry. All of the inspiring motives of his creative work derive from his own human and professional experiences, as is evident in the cycles of works he has completed over the last ten years.